A nice relaxing morning

After we left our wedding, we went by limo to our hotel. It wasn't very far away, but it was enough time to take my shoes off! We walked into the hotel, my dress all picked up and no shoes on! But we were so happy to just be in the quiet and just alone. Our wedding planner

had packed us three slices of wedding cake. They were amazing! I wish we had had six pieces, but oh well! In the morning, we had really yummy waffles on the bed, and then headed out to Marina. I have wanted to visit there since we started going to Bradenton, but we never got a chance. So we walked around Sarasota marina in the sunlight, walking among the boats, and along this pretty path looking over the harbour. It was so relaxing, and then we headed over to each of our parents houses, before heading to the airport for our honeymoon in Mexico!

Our beautiful Reception

After we had the ceremony, we took so many photos. It was quite warm in the sun, so after that, it was nice to be able to go back inside where the air conditioning was. We were able to have a few moments inside, before being announced to everyone who was waiting. They had all been enjoying our

yummy canapes and the bar, so they were all excited to see us. We came out and they announced us as Mr and Mrs Small - which was super cute! I think the weird thing about weddings is that right then, you do the first dance - so even though it was fully sunny out, we danced! To Ed Sheeran's "Thinking out loud".

It's such a cute song, but it was a little hard to dance in my dress! We had such a nice dance though - very different than practicing in our hallway! We danced, then we had our photographers take all our guests and arrange them in a heart. At the time, it seemed to take so, so long to arrange them -

but the end shot was AMAZING! Then we got to sit down for our dinner. My dad gave a really lovely speech, David gave his best man speech, and then Shelby gave the most heartwrenching speech you ever could have heard. It was so lovely - and she did so beautifully. Ms Halsall-Williams, our speech teacher would have been so proud of her - she made it, even with tears. It was so hard not to full on sob! I was so excited about the dinner - and the steak was literally the best thing I have ever tasted in my life! It was so yummy.

I was a little nervous about eating that I didn't finish it all - so Josh got some! It was so nice to see all our hard work - all those beautiful tablecloths I ordered from China, all the pretty vintage furniture Mummy had ordered, and all the amazing flowers, the glittery table numbers - it was just perfect -

with all these lights over our heads. It was really exactly as I had pictured it. After dinner, Josh and I moved around while everyone ate, and chatted to everyone. It had really helped that we had done a lot of the chatting and meet and greet the night before at the rehersal. It was nice to catch up

with all our friends who we hadn't seen in so long! Then, Daddy and I danced, and I cried the whole way through! The whole way through! Daddy laughed a lot and tried to hold it together though! Then Josh danced with his Mummy and that was lovely. But then, THE CAKE! I loved how beautiful our cakes were - mainly because we had 3 of them! Three! But they were great! We cut the cake with a katana - a samurai sword! Everyone really loved it! After the cake - we danced - all night! It was great! Lots of good music and dancing! It was great fun! And about 11pm, our limo came - and we headed out!

We finally are married. MARRIED!

It's funny - we had been waiting for this moment for months and months and months - years actually - but I was really really nervous. The music I chose to walk down the aisle to was a beautiful piano rendition of Christina Peri's "A thousand years" - which is something

I am still glad (only one month later) that I chose! But it was a really long time for people to get seated, and everyone of the girls to walk in slowly and take their place. I was hiding up above, on the balcony - and having a good time just sneaking a peak at everyone waiting. I have to say, I prayed and paced a lot up in that corridor. I was mainly worried about falling down the stairs in my beautiful shoes! But then, Alexis, our wedding planner, came to make sure I went on time - I was so nervous - but then I took this big breath

and just went for it. And I am sure I shook the whole time - but I remembered to have a big smile on my face. I don't think I breathed again until I was up with Josh. We had such a beautiful ceremony - most of which I don't remember really. We hired Wiley Lowe to be officiant -

and actually that was one of those decisions where I was just so glad we bit the bullet and hired someone. Everyone raved about Wiley afterwards - I had actually seen him in a YouTube video and known that was who I wanted to marry us! We had our friends Abel and Sinead do a reading - and then George and Mary did one. It was great to have them in the wedding with us. I cried a lot the whole time, but I managed to get through my "I do" without my voice shaking too much! And then, the glass was broken, and the music came on, and we walked down the aisle ( with poor Shelby trying to rescue my veil!) and then - it's like all my worries faded away - because we were finally married!

Surrounded by our family and friends

We got married! The ceremony was lovely - and I was so much more relaxed once we had gotten the ceremony out of the way and people weren't looking at me anymore. Once the exit music came on - I started dancing and was so happy! We were finally married - after all this time! So we

headed around the front of the house, and all the groomsmen and bridesmaids followed us around, and we took all sorts of family photos. Ones with our families and grandparents, and brothers and sisters. I liked those photos so much - especially this lovely one of me and my grandma.

We had all the guests in the back having a cocktail hour, and little canapes. Some of the food we chose for the wedding was really great - we had chicken and waffles - and little bang bang shrimp - it was all super yummy! One of the reasons that we chose the Powell Crosley was because the light was so beautiful and amazing. They have these beautiful Banyan trees along the side of the house, which are amazing, and we took the bridesmaids and groomsmen to these trees - and took lots of great pictures.

We took some individually and together and the boys took all sorts of silly photos - I love these boyband photos they took too! Very silly! We then took a couple more photos, and signed our marriage liscence. While we were out taking photos, Abel and Sinead, our JET friends from Ireland, were out with their baby. His mum came and looked after the baby and then took baby Casio home so they could enjoy themselves! While they were out there, we were able to get

our photographer to take a photo of the four of us. It was one of my favourites of the whole day - it wasn't planned or organized - just taken. And we look so happy! I was really pleased how the photos turned out for this - the colours and such. Everyone had been such a good sport and worn colours which went

with the colour scheme - and my mismatched bridesmaid dresses worked out really well! And our grandparents all wore light colours too which went really well together. I was so glad I was fussy about that, because it looked great! After all the photos, we went back into the house to be announced for the reception!

The most beautiful photos!

I knew that I would want a ton of photos of our wedding - specifically of Josh and I. I have browsed Pintrest way too much to not have had a million and one ideas! So my photographer and I arranged to have all the photos taken before the wedding ceremony, rather than during the cocktail hour, so that we would have more time! So, we had a first look - where I got to see Josh all dressed up in his tux! He looked so handsome! As soon as I saw him, I felt so much better, so much less nervous!

So we a chance to walk around the back of the Powell Crosley - and see all the hard work that everyone had put in. It was so beautiful - we could see all the beautiful tables and all the seats ready for people. We walked around with our photographers and had a whole bunch of beautiful photos taken - when I got them back I loved every single, single one of them! They are all beautiful! And I am so glad we had the time to do all these beautiful photos before the ceremony - so we could see our friends and family during the cocktail hour!

The day begins!

It seems like it was forever ago that Josh asked me to marry him....way back in December 2012 - it was actually years and years ago. We planned so much. Mummy called people and sorted everything. There were caterers, and hairdressers and table settings to sort out - it was just a bit crazy. But she planned it all, and the day was finally upon us! It seemed so odd to think that. But in the morning, we got up at this big house and waited for the hair and makeup people to arrive.

We all had a really relaxing time in the morning, eating tons of coffee cake ( I actually think I ate the whole cake) because I finally could eat like crazy! We all got our hair done a little differently and all our makeup done. It was nice to be dolled up - I loved how my hair was! Then we headed over to the Powell Crosley en mass!

Rehersal Dinner time!

Josh's Mum and Dad threw us a rehersal dinner the night before our wedding. I knew it was going to be travel themed, and held at the Selby Botanical Gardens, where we got engaged, way back in 2012. It was super cute - with each table named after different cities and all purple!

It was a good time - as people arrived, we were so pleased to see everyone that we had invited - all of them were people who were near and dear to our heart and had travelled so far to see us! It was so great to see everyone, and we took some adorable pictures too!